Elizabeth Catlett 1st State Early Edition. "Black is Beautiful"
View Similar Items
Elizabeth CatlettElizabeth Catlett 1st State Early Edition. "Black is Beautiful"1968
1968
About the Item
- Creator:Elizabeth Catlett (1915 - 2012, American)
- Creation Year:1968
- Dimensions:Height: 7.5 in (19.05 cm)Width: 11 in (27.94 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:San Francisco, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU137827363722
Elizabeth Catlett
Promoting social change was Elizabeth Catlett’s prime motivation as an artist. The granddaughter of enslaved people, Catlett was born in Washington, D.C., in 1915 and spent her adult life driven to create sculptures, prints and paintings that would reach, celebrate and uplift those who were barely visible in art.
“I have always wanted my art to service Black people — to reflect us, to relate to us, to stimulate us, to make us aware of our potential,” Catlett said of her work in the 1978 book Art: African American. She studied art history, drawing and other disciplines at Howard University, and as an MFA student at the University of Iowa, her mentor, the painter Grant Wood, advised her to “take as her subject what she knew best.” As she later told an interviewer, “The thing that I knew the most about was Black women, because I am one, and I lived with them all my life, so that’s what I started working with.”
The centerpiece of Catlett’s spring 1940 thesis project, Negro Mother and Child — a figure of a Black mother embracing her child, carved from Indiana limestone — was awarded first place for sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago held that year.
Catlett taught art at Dillard University in New Orleans — where she battled discrimination daily — and met her first husband, artist Charles White, while living in Chicago. She resigned from Dillard in 1942 and moved to New York City. There Catlett befriended painter Jacob Lawrence and studied lithography and other media at the Art Students League. Inspired by her studies with Ossip Zadkine, she began to incorporate abstract forms into her wood and stone sculptures.
In 1946, a grant supported her travel to Mexico to study its murals and graphic art. As Catlett had experienced the barbaric and deeply destructive system of racial segregation that the Jim Crow laws enforced in the United States, Mexico felt like a welcome escape. She would make the country her home and create much of her work there, divorcing White and marrying painter and printmaker Francisco Mora of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (People's Graphic Workshop), or TGP, in 1947. She collaborated with TGP, a graphic arts workshop dedicated to social issues located in Mexico City, on a number of works, including one of her best-known linoleum cut prints, Sharecropper (1952). The heroic depiction of an anonymous farm worker was intended to draw attention to the plight of Black tenant farmers who were ruthlessly exploited by the era’s white landowners.
Another iconic work of Catlett’s is Black Unity (1968), a raised fist sculpted from cedar, smooth and gleaming, with one side taking the form of two faces that resemble carved African masks. In the same year, the raised fist, a powerful symbol of the Civil Rights struggle and emblem of the Black Power movement, had been immortalized by two Black American athletes, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, who raised their black-gloved fists during the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Catlett was a professor of sculpture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s School of Fine Arts in Mexico City from 1958 until 1976, when she retired to focus on making art, exhibiting extensively in the years that followed. In 2003, she completed the Ralph Ellison Memorial in New York’s Riverside Park. That same year she received a lifetime achievement award from the International Sculpture Center. Her work is in the collections of museums worldwide, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Find a range of authentic Elizabeth Catlett art today on 1stDibs.
- Leonardo Lasansky Signed & Framed Exhibition Poster C.1982Located in San Francisco, CALeonardo Lasansky Signed & Framed Exhibition Poster C.1982 Dimensions 22" wide x 32" high The frame measures 26" wide x 35" high Signed at ...Category
Late 20th Century Impressionist Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Beniamino Benvenuto Bufano "Tete d' Infant" Lithograph c.1970By Beniamino BufanoLocated in San Francisco, CABeniamino Benvenuto Bufano (1898-1970) "Tete d' Infant" Lithograph c.1970 Fine signed lithograph by noted American artist Beniamino Bufano. From a limited edition of 145. Dimensio...Category
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Vintage Cucaro "Cory Galleries San Francisco" Exhibition Poster C.1981By Pascal Cucaro, 1915-2003Located in San Francisco, CAVintage Cucaro "Cory Galleries San Francisco" Exhibition Poster C.1981 The poster measures 19.75" wide x 27.75" high The frame measures 20.25" wide x 28.25" high Good vintage cond...Category
Late 20th Century Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Vintage Lithograph "The Actor" Pencil Signed and Titled C.1940Located in San Francisco, CAVintage Lithograph "The Actor" Pencil Signed and Titled C.1940 Dimensions 7.5" wide x 10.5" high The distressed frame measures 14.75" wide x 17.5" high Signed and titled (illegibl...Category
Early 20th Century Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Londonia Super Acrobats Antique French Poster C.1900Located in San Francisco, CALondonia Super Acrobats Antique French Poster C.1900 Fine French circus poster by Finot. Two handsome young acrobats stand tall against a red ba...Category
Early 20th Century Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Charles Banks Wilson "Old Injun" Pencil Signed Lithograph c.1948By Charles Banks WilsonLocated in San Francisco, CACharles Banks Wilson (American, 1918-2013) was an American artist. Born in Springdale, AK in 1918, he moved to Oklahoma, where he spent his childhood. He was a painter, printmaker, t...Category
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Chez Panisse 12th Birthday Celebration: Limited Ed. Goines Graphic Art PosterBy David Lance GoinesLocated in Alamo, CAThis original graphic art lithographic poster entitled "Twelve, Chez Panisse Twelfth Birthday" was created by David Lance Goines in 1983 in his Berkeley s...Category
Late 20th Century Interior Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Mothu et Doria: A 19th C. Lithograph from Les Maitres de l'Affiche by SteinlenBy Théophile Alexandre SteinlenLocated in Alamo, CAThis is a framed 19th century color lithograph entitled "Mothu et Doria" created by Theophile Alexandre Steinlen and published between 1896 and 1899 in Paris, France by Jules Cheret in his famous series of miniature colored stone lithographs of popular Belle Epoch posters...Category
Late 19th Century Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Chez Panisse Restaurant Birthday Celebration: Original Goines Graphic Art PosterBy David Lance GoinesLocated in Alamo, CAThis original graphic art lithographic poster entitled "Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe" was created by David Lance Goines in 1989 in his Berkeley studio...Category
Late 20th Century Interior Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Daumier Satirical Lithograph Depicting French Men Tasting and Critiquing WineBy Honoré DaumierLocated in Alamo, CADaumier was a master of French satire and caricatures. In this lithograph entitled "TYPES PARISIENS NO. 1, Eh bien malin! comment le trouvez vous celui-là! - Oui, oui, mais enfin - O...Category
1840s Other Art Style Interior Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- William Booth, Founder of "The Salvation Army": A 19th C. Vanity Fair CaricatureBy Sir Leslie WardLocated in Alamo, CAThis is a 19th century Vanity Fair color chromolithograph caricature of William Booth "The Salvation Army" by Spy (Leslie Ward) November 25, 1882, No. 2...Category
Late 19th Century Victorian Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- A Pair of 19th C. Engravings Depicting the Costumes and Weapons of Afghani MenLocated in Alamo, CAThese hand-colored lithographs are from "Character and Costumes of Afghanistan", written by Lockyer Willis Hart (of the 22nd Bombay Native Infantry). The lithographs were created by ...Category
1840s Realist Portrait Prints
MaterialsLithograph